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Month: September 2010

Bisphenol-A or BPA — a chemical used primarily to make plastics — has been under scrutiny in the United States since 2008 when its safety was called into question. Most recently, a study published Sept. 20 in the online NIH journal Environmental Health Perspectives “suggests exposure to BPA is actually much greater than previously thought and its authors urge the federal government to act quickly to regulate the chemical that is found in baby bottles, food-storage containers and many household products.”

One of the researchers, Frederick vom Saal, professor of biological sciences at the University of Missouri, said in a news release that the study “provides convincing evidence” that BPA is dangerous and that “further evidence of human harm should not be required for regulatory action to reduce human exposure to BPA.”

According to a New York Times article, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says “it is OK for humans to take in up to 50 micrograms of BPA per kilogram of body weight each day. The new study, published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives, suggests that we are exposed to at least eight times that amount every day.”

In August, Canada placed BPA on a toxic-substance list under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act. The country first banned BPA-containing plastic baby bottles in 2008, “but the new move will see BPA removed from all products on store shelves. As a result, Canada will become the first country in the world to declare BPA as a toxic substance.”

Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) believes BPA should be legislated on a national level and wants to amend the Food and Drug Administration Food Safety Modernization Act currently under consideration in the Senate to ban BPA from children’s food and beverage containers. However, Republicans and industry representatives are pushing back, saying that research hasn’t conclusively proven that the chemical is harmful. Sen. Feinstein said, “In America today, millions of infants and children are needlessly exposed to BPA. This is unacceptable. If this isn’t a good enough reason to offer an amendment, I don’t know what is.”

What is BPA and Why Should You Care?

Bisphenol-A is “a synthetic estrogen used to harden polycarbonate plastics and epoxy resin.” It is found in many plastic containers as well as in the lining of canned goods. According to the Environmental Working Group:

Over 200 studies have linked BPA to health effects such as reproductive disorders, prostate and breast cancer, birth defects, low sperm count, early puberty and effects on brain development and behavior. BPA leaches from containers like sippy cups, baby bottles, baby food and infant formula canisters into the food and drink inside where it is then ingested by babies and children. The CDC found BPA in 93 percent of all Americans. Just last year EWG research revealed BPA in umbilical cord blood of newborns, which demonstrates that babies are exposed to this toxic chemical before they are born.

Today I want to talk briefly about one of the ways we’ve chosen to “Go Green” in my house and that is by rarely, if ever, eating beef. Here’s a weird but true fact from OMAOG about cows:

Cows are a major contributor to greenhouse gases. As the old adage says, what goes in must come out, and for cattle, a lot of what comes out is methane gas. And just like carbon, methane gas gets trapped in our atmosphere. Since the 1960s, the amount of methane in the air has increased by 1% per year—twice as fast as the build up of carbon dioxide. As worldwide demand for beef increases, so do the number of cows and the methane they produce. Also, in many countries around the world, forests are being clear cut to make room for growing beef. Cutting down trees reduces the planet’s ability to absorb carbon dioxide.

Also, if you haven’t yet heard of Meatless Monday, you might want to schedule your vegetarian meal of the week for Mondays to coincide with it (and maybe even plan on going meatless for the entire day). Meatless Monday is a non-profit initiative (totally unrelated to OMAOG) that provides recipes and info to start each week with healthy, environmentally friendly meat-free alternatives. The goal of Meatless Monday is “to help you reduce your meat consumption by 15% in order to improve your personal health and the health of the planet.”

At our house for dinner tonight we had eggs with spinach, salsa and cheese. We tend to eat about 50% of our meals without meat and although I don’t always schedule them to coincide with Meatless Monday, today it just worked out. (In other words, I was feeling lazy and eggs were a quick and easy dinner. *wink*)

If you eat meat, do you take a meal or day (Meatless Monday) off from it each week? If not, would you try it?

Disclosure: Rockfish Interactive, in partnership with Cisco, is compensating me for my considerable time on this project. However, my ideas, words, and opinions are my own and are not influenced by this compensation.

“We can do no great things, only small things with great love.”
— Mother Teresa

It’s no secret that caring for the environment is one of my passions. After all, I’m “crunchy” and I don’t mean in milk. 😉 I don’t claim to live a perfectly green lifestyle, but I do the best that I can in the moment. I try to lead by example and inspire others to do what they can too.

We all have our different shades of green. There are some of us who are light green – just starting to go green and tentatively taking those first baby steps. There are others of us who are a darker shade and have been at it for years, but are still finding new ways to better our lives and the environment. Then there are those of us who are dark green — the uber-greenies who leave the rest of us in awe at their green awesomeness. You know who you are (though are probably not reading my blog, LOL). 😉

Regardless of your shade of green, I’m a firm believer that you don’t have to do it ALL to have a positive impact on the Earth. Every little bit adds up.

That’s why I’m excited to introduce you to One Million Acts of Green (OMAOG) — a resource that, once you register or connect via Facebook, allows you to log various “Acts of Green” and then see the positive impact you are having on the environment. Your Acts of Green are broken down into Greenhouse Gases Saved and what that equates to in terms of how many cars taken off the road for a year, how many trees plants, and how many lightbulbs replaced. I think its cool – in a geeky green-kinda way – to see just what the impact is of closing your curtains on a hot summer day, taking public transportation, or setting up a compost bin. It reaffirms to me that the little choices, as well as the big choices I make make a difference.

Why One Million Acts of Green? In October 2008, Cisco launched One Million Acts of Green in Canada to show that individual, organizational, and community acts of green add up to something significant. Today, it is officially launching in the United States. The idea is that your act of green will inspire other acts, and other people.

Here’s how it works:
Once you’ve registered, find an Act that you’d like to complete to learn more about it. You can “Pledge” to complete an act or simply do it, depending on the Act that you’ve chosen. Once it’s been completed, OMAOG will calculate the greenhouses gases that the Act has saved and add it to your individual, country and worldwide totals.

Some Fun and Easy Ways to Get Started with One Million Acts of Green

Green U is a program meant for the newbie greenies – those who want to live a greener lifestyle, but are overwhelmed and don’t know where to start. Green U offers a list of 20 simple Acts to get you on your way.

The Three to Green Sweepstakes offers participants a chance to win a $5000 “green” shopping spree at BuyGreen.com. For every three Acts of Green you complete, you get an entry into the contest. The more Acts you complete, the more entries you receive!

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.
— Lao-tzu

Are you ready to take that single step?Sign up on One Million Acts of Green. Register or connect via Facebook and get started logging your Green Acts and making them count towards the goal of the United States completing One Million Acts of Green! Feel free to let me know if you have any questions too. I’ll be sharing more about OMAOG in the weeks ahead.

Disclosure: Rockfish/CISCO One Million Acts of Green is compensating me for my time on this project. As always, all words and opinions are my own.

Many mothers start out with the best of intentions when it comes to breastfeeding. Health experts agree that “breast is best” and the benefits of breastfeeding for both the baby and the mother are numerous. Yet while a lot of people give lip service to the importance of breastfeeding, there isn’t a lot of support for women once they make the decision to breastfeed. In fact, our society offers very little support to breastfeeding moms and often sabotages breastfeeding altogether.

The examples above all have one thing in common – they are Breastfeeding Booby Traps. Best For Babes (a non-profit that believes “ALL moms deserve to make an informed feeding decision and to be cheered on, coached and celebrated without pressure, judgment or guilt, whether they breastfeed for 2 days, 2 months 2 years, or not at all”) describes Breastfeeding Booby Traps as “the cultural and institutional barriers that prevent moms from achieving their personal breastfeeding goals.”

Some Booby Traps include:

sending moms home from the hospital with a “gift bag” of formula,

having family and/or friends who are uncomfortable with you nursing and ask when you are going to give the baby a bottle,

or having a pediatrician who is unable to answer your questions about breastfeeding.

This post is not to debate breastfeeding vs. formula-feeding. Parents have the right to decide how to feed their baby. But they also have the right to be presented with factual information and the right to not have their feeding decisions undermined. Best For Babes is working to help accomplish that.

As long as we fight amongst ourselves on this one symptom we cannot unite against the disease. The disease of markets that profit solely on the belief that our bodies are not good enough, not good enough to be sexually attractive, not good enough to give birth and not good enough to nourish our babies afterwards. A simple statement that could bring down this entire empire of insecurity: “Not only are we good enough, we are better just the way we are.”

You might ask why I care whether a formula company sponsors a breastfeeding portion of a website. I care, because I want women to have a choice in how they feed their children. I care, because women aren’t being given proper information on nursing, which sabotages the attempts of women who want to breastfeed. I care because, believe it or not, formula advertising has been shown over and over again to have a negative effect on breastfeeding relationships. Formula advertising not only affects women’s choices in how to feed their children, whether they are conscious of it or not, but it results in drastically higher costs for families who choose to feed their children formula (who do you think ends up paying for the “free” samples given at the hospital and sent in the mail, as well as all those commercials and Internet ads?). That affects their choice as well.

Annie from PhD in Parenting also pointed out that even WebMD’s breastfeeding guide is sponsored by Gerber (which is owned by Nestle). There are six Gerber ads on the page that is supposed to help mothers with breastfeeding! Annie, who said, “There has to be a way to stop this incredibly unethical and predatory infant formula marketing on websites pretending to offer breastfeeding support,” urges her readers to take action and lists a few ways to get involved.

Reading the book frustrated me on so many levels. I’ve talked before about Nestle’s marketing practices before, but it goes beyond that. The origins of formula; unnecessary death of babies in both developed and ‘third world’ countries; the undermining of women because we’re “not good enough”/”not reliable enough” to maintain life; the supplementing with formula without permission from mums; the strange habit of separating babies from their mums in hospital, etc.

This book has changed the way I look at so many aspects of birth and infant care.

What is the solution? How do we stop undermining breastfeeding moms?
I think the best start is if formula companies would start following the World Health Organization’s International Code of Marketing Breast-Milk Substitutes. We all know formula exists. We all know where we can get some (even for free), if we so desire. The marketing and the deceit need to stop. If you are upset about the Babble/Similac partnership or the WebMD/Gerber/Nestle partnership, follow Annie’s lead and take action. Let the companies know you disagree with their choices and why and then spread the word.

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” — Margaret Mead

I think it should be an unwritten rule that at harvest time crunchy and/or green bloggers get a free pass from blogging because they are spending all of their time in the kitchen baking, canning, freezing, and otherwise preserving all of the yummy foods they’ve grown or purchased (hopefully locally) for the winter.

I’m sorry my blog is suffering lately, but the family and I have been a bit preoccupied doing things like this:

Climbing apple trees at Roger’s Grove

Picking and eating apples

Getting organic food from the co-op

Canning applesauce and dilly beans!

Taking a tractor ride to pick oodles of strawberries at Berry Patch Farms

Exploring the great outdoors at Boulder Creek

Trying to decide what I’m going to do with 60 pounds of Colorado peaches, pears and nectarines! (I still haven’t figured it all out!)

Visiting a honey harvest at Sandstone Ranch

OK, so I haven’t been completely locked in the kitchen. 😉 We’ve also been spending quite a bit of time out in nature. The weather’s been gorgeous and its hard to stay indoors. Plus, the kids have so much fun exploring and honestly, I do too. 🙂

How’s your harvest season going this year? What are you putting up for the winter?

After Australian mom Kate Ogg gave birth to premature twins at 27 weeks gestation, her doctor gave her the news no mother wants to hear. One of the twins – a boy – didn’t make it, but that’s just the beginning of this heartwarming story. The doctor – who struggled for 20 minutes to save the infant before declaring him dead – gave the 2-pound lifeless baby to Kate and her husband David to say their goodbyes. Kate instinctively placed her naked newborn son, named Jamie, on her bare chest.

As the grieving parents embraced and talked to Jamie for two hours, he began gasping for air. At first the doctors dismissed it as a reflex. However, the gasps continued more frequently and he began showing other signs of life. Kate gave Jamie some breastmilk on her finger. Amazingly, he took it and began to breathe normally. Kate recalled, “A short time later he opened his eyes. It was a miracle. Then he held out his hand and grabbed my finger. He opened his eyes and moved his head from side to side. The doctor kept shaking his head saying, ‘I don’t believe it, I don’t believe it.'”

The technique which Kate Ogg used to revive her baby – placing the infant skin-to-skin with the mother or father – is known as Kangaroo Care or Kangaroo Mother Care, a practice endorsed by the World Health Organization for use with premature infants. Pre-term and low birth-weight babies treated with the skin-to-skin method have been shown to have lower infection rates, less severe illness, improved sleep patterns and are at reduced risk of hypothermia.

Kangaroo care is the practice of holding your diapered baby on your bare chest (if you’re the father) or between your breasts (if you’re the mother), with a blanket draped over your baby’s back. This skin-to-skin contact benefits both you and your baby.

Kangaroo care can help your baby:

Maintain his body warmth

Regulate his heart and breathing rates

Gain weight

Spend more time in deep sleep

Spend more time being quiet and alert and less time crying

Have a better chance of successful breastfeeding (kangaroo care can improve the mother’s breastmilk production)

Dr. Jack Newman believes Kangaroo care benefits all babies and believes the “vast majority of babies” should have skin-to-skin contact with the mother “immediately after birth for at least an hour. Hospital routines, such as weighing the baby, should not take precedence.” In his article The Importance of Skin-to-Skin Contact, Dr. Newman states:

There are now a multitude of studies that show that mothers and babies should be together, skin to skin (baby naked, not wrapped in a blanket) immediately after birth, as well as later. The baby is happier, the baby’s temperature is more stable and more normal, the baby’s heart and breathing rates are more stable and more normal, and the baby’s blood sugar is more elevated. Not only that, skin to skin contact immediately after birth allows the baby to be colonized by the same bacteria as the mother. This, plus breastfeeding, are thought to be important in the prevention of allergic diseases. When a baby is put into an incubator, his skin and gut are often colonized by bacteria different from his mother’s.

On About.com, Pamela Prindle Fierro shared that her doctor prescribed Kangaroo care for one of her twins born at 36 weeks when the infant was having trouble regulating her body temperature. She mentions that, “Doctors seem a little bit leery of confirming that kangaroo care is a miraculous cure, but the [Jamie Ogg] story is bringing attention to the practice of kangaroo care. It’s one of those rare medical treatments that has no drawbacks or side-effects and is actually pleasurable.”

On the Informed Parenting blog, Danielle Arnold-McKenny said, “The mind boggles when you read stories like this. A mother instinctively caring for her baby by keeping him skin to skin, even when all hope is lost… and a baby responding to his mothers warmth and touch and voice.”

Danielle mentions that she’s read several stories over the years like this one and linked to a similar story from December 2007, Parents ‘Last Good Bye’ Saved Their Baby’s Life. Carolyn Isbister was given her tiny 20 oz. dying baby to say good-bye. Carolyn instinctively put her baby girl to her chest to warm her up and again, using the Kangaroo Care method, ended up saving her life. “I’m just so glad I trusted my instinct and picked her up when I did. Otherwise she wouldn’t be here today.”

David Ogg said something very similar of his wife Kate’s response to baby Jamie. “Luckily I’ve got a very strong, very smart wife. She instinctively did what she did. If she hadn’t done that, Jamie probably wouldn’t be here.”

Little Jamie and his twin sister Emily are 5 months old now and doing well.

Edited to add: After posting this, I learned that the Oggs, with babies Jamie and Emily in tow, were on the TODAY show this morning telling their story. I chose not to post about it here, but Kate and David spoke on the TODAY show about the trouble they had getting the doctor to come back and check on Jamie after they were fairly sure he was not dead or dying. They eventually had to lie to get the doctor to return. You can read or hear more about that on the TODAY article and video.

This is the first year I’ve attempted to grow watermelon (which the kids LOVE) and am so pleased to see a few of them looking edible. 🙂 Its been so fun to see the melons growing a bit more each day.
I’m hoping this little baby will be ready to eat soon, but I have no idea when to pick it. Any suggestions? I think I need to track down my Botanical Interests seed packet to read more about it. 🙂